Give Me Back My Legions!

by Harry Turtledove

  “What do we do, sir?” This time, Aristocles and the wounded Roman soldier asked it together. They sounded more urgent that way—more frantic, really. A tragic chorus, Varus thought, and wished he hadn’t. He paused to listen to the racket from up ahead. It sounded worse than ever. Sure enough, the wounded man had told the truth. Varus couldn’t imagine why the fellow wouldn’t have; he could feel himself grasping for straws.

  No time for that now. “We have to fight,” Varus said. He pointed to the man who’d brought the news. “Tell the troops ahead to form line of battle and give the barbarians worse than they get. And tell them to remember they’re Romans. We’ll win this yet.”

  The wounded man set his hands on his hips, exactly as Claudia Pulchra might have done after Varus said something truly stupid. “Sir, they can’t form line of battle,” the fellow said, as if speaking to an idiot. “There’s nothing but swamp on one side of the track, and nothing but howling savages on the other. That’s got to be why the Germans picked this place to begin with.”

  Hearing that, Varus knew at once that it must be true. He also knew the depth of his own folly. How long had Arminius been cozening him, stringing him along, while at the same time drawing Germans from all over the province to this… this ambuscade? From the very beginning, probably. From before the beginning, even: why would he have taken service with the auxiliaries if not to learn how the Romans fought and how to turn what he learned against them?

  “Your Excellency—!” If that wasn’t desperation in Aristocles’ voice now, Quinctilius Varus had never heard it. The wounded Roman shifted from foot to foot, too, as if about to piss himself.

  Varus wondered why he wasn’t more afraid. Maybe because, understanding that the worst had happened, he saw he couldn’t do much about it now. If your only real choice was making the best end you could… that was what you had to do.

  He drew his own sword. “Well, my dears, we shall have to fight,” he said. “If we can’t deploy, we’ll take them on one by one, that’s all.” Something else occurred to him. “Oh—Aristocles.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Don’t get too far from me, please. If worse comes to worst”—even now, Varus wouldn’t say when worse comes to worst—“I don’t aim to let the savages take me alive. I’d appreciate a friendly hand on the other end of the sword, if you’d be so kind.”

  The Greek gulped. He couldn’t very well misunderstand that, even if his expression said he wanted to. Licking his lips, he said, “If I have to, sir, I’ll tend to it. I hope somebody will do the same for me, that’s all.”

  “I think you may be able to find someone,” Varus said dryly. That might prove his last understatement, but it surely wasn’t his smallest.

  Vala Numonius’ head whipped around. Only a dead man could have ignored that sudden, dreadful racket. “By the gods!” a mounted officer near him exclaimed. “What the demon is that!”

  Although the cavalry commander feared he knew, he didn’t want to say the words out loud. Sometimes naming something could make it real where it hadn’t been before. Maybe that was only superstition. On the other hand, maybe it wasn’t. Why take chances?

  And Numonius didn’t have to. A man galloped up from behind him, crying, “The Germans! The Germans!”

  “What about them?” Numonius knew the question was idiotic as soon as it passed his lips, which was just too late.

  The man coming forward, fortunately, didn’t take it amiss. But that was the only good news the cavalry commander had, for the fellow went on, “They’re killing the foot soldiers, sir! Slaughtering them with spears!”

  “We have to save them!” cried the officer who’d exclaimed about the awful noise.

  “If we can,” Vala Numonius said. The officer looked at him as if he couldn’t believe his ears. Face hot with shame, Numonius realized the cavalrymen would have to make the effort. If he didn’t order it, they’d mutiny and go back without him. Easier to lead them in the direction they wanted to go . . if that didn’t get them all killed. Vala Numonius licked his lips before he shouted, “Back! We’ll do all we can for our comrades!”

  Cheering, the horsemen turned and rode south and east, in the direction from which they’d come. Numonius drew his sword. Maybe the charge would frighten the Germans away. He hoped so. If it didn’t, the Roman cavalrymen would have their hands full. Vala Numonius knew he would. With the sword in one hand, he would have only the other to use to hang on to his saddle grip. If his left hand slipped, he might go right off his horse’s back.

  Mounted spearmen were in the same predicament. They couldn’t charge home with the full weight of their horses behind them. A rider would go over his mount’s tail if he tried anything so harebrained. If only a man’s foot could grip the saddle as well as his hands could! Numonius laughed at himself. Talk about harebrained! If there were a way to do something like that, someone would surely have thought of it by now.

  Then the laughter died. Vala Numonius had imagined the Germans attacking the Romans, yes. But he’d never imagined such horrible swarms of them, all thrusting and ululating and having a grand old time. And he’d never imagined that the Roman cavalry wouldn’t be able to stand off and ply the savages with arrows. In this rain, that was hopeless; a wet bowstring was as useless as no bowstring at all.

  They would have to close with the Germans, then, if they were going to rescue their friends… if they could rescue them. How many thousands of barbarians were battening on the legionaries? Numonius led a few hundred horsemen; Roman armies were always stronger in infantry man in cavalry. Riders were fine for scouting and pursuits. For real fighting, you needed men on foot.

  So the Romans had always believed, and centuries of experience had taught them they were right. Crassus’ disaster against the Parthian cavalry a lifetime earlier was the exception that tested the rule. But what the Parthians had done meant little to Vala Numonius. They’d had an army of horsemen then. He had a detachment. He somehow had to beat an army with it.

  Hoarse yells said the Germans saw the oncoming Romans. So did a shower of spears flying toward the Roman riders. A wounded horse screamed terribly. A wounded cavalryman added his shrieks to the din. The horse with a spear in its barrel staggered and fell, pitching off its rider. The animal just behind tripped over the wounded beast. The man atop it also flew off with a wail of dismay.

  Numonius swung his sword at a German. Laughing, the barbarian sprang back out of range. In his excitement, the cavalry commander almost cut off his horse’s right ear. The German picked up a fist-sized rock and flung it at him.

  The fellow was too eager. Had he let Numonius ride past and then struck him from behind, he might well have brought him down. As things were, Numonius saw the stone hurtling toward him. He flattened himself against his horse’s neck. The stone brushed his left shoulder as it flew by. He yelped, but it was an involuntary noise. A heartbeat later, he realized he wasn’t hurt.

  He also realized his cavalrymen wouldn’t be able to drive the savages away from the Roman infantry. As the fight came to closer quarters, he saw how many legionaries in the front ranks were already down. What had the Germans done? Whatever it was, it meant that a whole great slavering pack of them had interposed themselves between his detachment and the surviving foot soldiers farther back. The riders hadn’t the slightest chance of hacking through so many.

  From behind, he slashed a barbarian who was about to spear another Roman horseman. The German leaped in the air in surprise, blood pouring from his right shoulder. He howled like a wolf. A Roman who saved a comrade’s life in battle earned a decoration. Vala Numonius feared he wouldn’t survive to claim it.

  Sure as demons, the decoration was the least of his worries. A savage with a sense of tactics was shouting and gesticulating, trying to move his men to surround the Roman riders. Was that Arminius, who’d learned too many lessons from Rome? Numonius couldn’t be sure, not through the rain. It seemed all too likely, though. So Varus was wrong straight down the line. He
didn’t do things by halves when he went wrong, did he?

  Another German threw a spear that pierced Numonius’ greave and bit into his calf. The wound wasn’t nearly so bad as it would have been were he unarmored. He pulled out the spear and awkwardly threw it back.

  Then the pain hit. The warm trickle of blood running down his leg joined the cold trickle of rainwater. Numonius couldn’t even look down to sec just how nasty the wound was, not unless he wanted to unstrap the punctured greave. He wanted nothing less. Suppose he got hit again!

  That thought fanned the rising flames of panic inside him—and they already blazed high enough. High enough? No, too high. The torment of his wound and the sight of savages loping along to cut off his men made him shout orders that left the riders staring at him.

  “Away!” he screamed. “Save yourselves! The legionaries are lost! Get away if you can!”

  He wheeled his own horse and roweled it with his spurs. The animal squealed. It bounded off so powerfully, it almost threw him. But he clung to the handgrips like a burr. After a bit, the horse slowed some and steadied its pace.

  Many cavalrymen fled with him. Some shot past him as if launched from a ballista. Maybe they’d get away. Maybe I’ll get away, Numonius thought. The selfishness of fear made him forget everything else.

  Other cavalrymen went on doing what they could for their comrades on foot. They had to know they were throwing away their own lives. Vala Numonius looked back over his shoulder. He saw the Germans pull a rider off his horse and, slowly and deliberately, shove spears into the man. He imagined he heard their hoarse, baying laughter. But it was only his imagination—he’d got too far away by then.

  Maybe I will get away, he thought again as his horse bucketed north and west. Maybe I will. Maybe. Please, gods. Just let me get away.

  Under his cloak, Arminius had an erection. The most beautiful, most sensual woman in all of Germany couldn’t have roused him like this, not if she danced naked in front of him. To plan for years, to see all your plans not only come to fruition but turn out better than you ever dreamt they could… If that wasn’t enough to put some fire in your balls, you probably didn’t have any.

  The Romans did things like that. One of the Latin words Arminius had learned in Pannonia was eunuch. The idea was enough to sicken him. To treat a man as if he were a stallion or a bull or a ram… The idea almost made his yard shrink. And one of the Roman officers down there had had such a creature for a slave. Seeing a eunuch, hearing a eunuch—that had put Arminius off his stride for days.

  But he’d cut the ballocks off the Romans in Germany! Curse me if I haven’t, he thought. He’d had a bad moment when the cavalry came back to try to rescue the legionaries. Too late for that, though! The Roman horsemen had figured that out themselves. Now they were running. Some of them might even make it back to the Rhine. But his folk would hunt most of them down before they could.

  And if a few did escape… well, so what? Arminius nodded to himself. That could even turn out for the best. If the refugee Roman cavalrymen spread panic ahead of them, the Rhine garrisons might flee instead of fighting the Germans. In that case, Arminius would have an easier time taking Gaul away from the Empire.

  He intended to do just that. He had a victorious army behind him. What else could you do with an army but use it? As long as he led it from one triumph to another, it would stay his. And as long as it stayed his, he could use it for whatever he wanted.

  Germany needed a king. Germany might not know that yet, but he did. The Romans had done very well with one man telling them what to do. As long as the Germans followed scores of tribal chieftains and war leaders and petty kings, they’d waste most of their strength fighting one another. Led by somebody like Arminius, they could turn all that strength against foreign foes.

  Led by somebody just like me, Arminius thought, nodding. He could do it. He was sure he could. After a victory like this, who would dare stand against him? But for himself, the strongest German king was Maroboduus of the Marcomanni, far off to the southeast. Everyone knew Maroboduus had stirred up the Pannonian rebellion to keep the Romans from invading his lands. That was canny, no doubt. But Maroboduus hadn’t had the nerve to attack the Romans before they came after him.

  I did! Arminius exulted. “I did!” he shouted, thrusting his sword up into the air.

  A dying legionary groaned. Several Germans stared at Arminius.

  “You did what?” one of them asked. He wore a shabby cloak held closed by a bronze fibula tarnished green. He was a nobody, in other words, and had probably never got close enough to Arminius before to have any notion of what he looked like.

  “I brought the Romans here,” Arminius answered. “I lured them to destruction!”

  “Who do you think you are? One of the big shots?” The other German eyed his cloak of fine wool trimmed with fur, eyed the garnet-studded gold pin that closed it, and eyed the sword. Only rich men carried swords. The spear was the common German weapon. Grudgingly, the fellow went on, “Well, maybe you are.”

  “I am Arminius.” Arminius wanted everyone to know who he was and how wonderful he was. Like the Romans, his folk reckoned a proud reputation one of the most important things a prominent man could have. What made you prominent, if not fame among your neighbors?

  He impressed the unknown German less than he’d hoped. “Well, maybe you are,” the man repeated. “But two other fellows already told me the same thing.”

  “Point them out to me, so I can kill them,” Arminius snarled. No one would rob him of his glory. No one would cling to his good name and suck the blood from it like a leech in a swamp, either.

  “Don’t seem em now,” the other German answered. Maybe he didn’t. Or maybe he didn’t care to watch a fight among his own folk. That might be wise. Arminius realized as much even before the poor man continued, “We ought to be killing these gods-hated Romans instead.”

  “Well, you’re right. So we should,” Arminius agreed. “Let’s go do it.”

  A legionary down with a leg wound stretched out an imploring hand and called, “Mercy, comrade!” in Latin.

  Most of Arminius’ comrades wouldn’t have understood the words, though they probably would have figured out the gesture. Also in Latin, Arminius said, “Here’s all the mercy you deserve.” He drove his sword into the Roman’s neck. The man gasped and choked as life gushed from him, then slumped over to lie still.

  Arminius knew he had been merciful. Already Germans were leading or dragging chained Roman prisoners away from the field. After the uneven fight finally sputtered out, they would offer the captives to the gods. How many interesting and unusual ways to kill legionaries would they find? All of them, Arminius was sure, would make harder deaths than a cut throat.

  Here and there, individual Romans and a few stubborn knots of them still showed fight. Maybe they knew what would happen to captives and aimed to make the Germans kill them. Maybe, like brave soldiers anywhere, they were simply too stubborn to give up. Arminius admired their courage. But it would do them no good. They’d had no chance to form up, the head of their column was destroyed, and their foes had got in amongst them. If they wanted to die fighting, die they would.

  Other Romans wanted to live. They stumbled out into the swampy mire that lined the track to the right. Quite a few of them got stuck in it. The Germans had a high old time throwing spears and stones at them. Men made bets with one another—who could hit the most Romans, or the ones farthest away, or who could hit a particular soldier with a particular cast.

  A few legionaries managed more progress than the rest. Some were liable to get out of the swamp and have to be hunted on better ground. A few might even escape. Others staggered up onto higher, drier patches of ground within the swamp. A couple of those groups, perhaps led by hard-bitten underofficers, tried to ready themselves for defense. They would die in due course, too, but finishing them off might prove costly.

  First things first. The Romans at the rear of their column hadn’t even be
en attacked yet. Arminius shouted and sent more of his men after them. “Their baggage train will be back in that direction, too,” he added. That got the Germans moving, all right. They did everything but slaver at the prospect of three legions’ worth of booty.

  “You don’t fight fair,” a wounded Roman moaned as Arminius trotted past. The German chieftain almost stopped and bowed. He couldn’t imagine finer praise, even if the legionary hadn’t meant it that way.

  Something else struck Arminius. “Take Varus alive if you can!” he bawled. “We’ll give him to the gods. They deserve to feed well for what they’ve done for us today. What would make them happier—what would make them fatter—than a fat Roman with the gall to call himself governor of Germany?”

  How the warriors all around shouted and cheered! That acclaim tasted even sweeter than a woman gasping and quivering under Arminius. Most men could pleasure a woman. How many, though, ever won fame like this? As long as the German folk endured, men would remember Arminius. What greater immortality could a man claim?

  “Come on!” Arminius said. “We won’t just beat them. We’ll slaughter them. They’ll never dare set their toes on this side of the Rhine from now till the end of the world. In fact, we’ll go take away their land on the far side!” The Germans cheered him again.

  XVII

  Lucius Eggius lurched through the mud. He had a nasty wound on the outside of his right thigh. Blood soaked the strip of cloth he’d tied around it and ran down his leg. It hurt like a bastard. So did several lesser gashes. It wasn’t often given to a man to know the date of his own death. Though not dead yet, Eggius knew when he would die.

  Today.

  Soon, in fact. The only reason he wasn’t already dead was that no German had decided to come after him instead of some other Roman and finish him off. At first, that had been nothing but luck. (Eggius was no longer convinced it had been good luck.) Later, after so many men fell in the first dreadful barrage of spears, Eggius not only stayed alive but fought back. He’d used his javelins. His gladius had blood on it, though the rain was washing that off. He’d made the barbarians pay for his tanned and scarred hide. And much good it had done him or anybody else.